Waste Tyres as Heat Sink to Reduce the Driveway Surface Temperatures in Malaysia

The development of roads and driveways are on the rise as automobiles are now a necessity to all. This excessive development with its requirements increased the urban heat temperature and the generation of waste tyres. Waste tyre management has therefore been taken seriously by developed countries and since the European directive to ban used tyre products and whole tire disposal from landfill in 2003 and 2006 respectively, many researchers have looked for alternative ways to use the waste tyre. In Malaysia, The Smart and Cool Home Developer attempted to develop an eco-house by utilising waste tyre as the foundation for the driveway and claimed that the buried tyres act as a heat sink for the concrete and reduce the surface temperature of the driveway. Hence investigations were conducted on two sample houses to investigate this phenomenon. Findings from this pilot study show that waste tyres do act as a heat sink to the concrete driveways which affect the ambient temperature and relative humidity of the immediate surroundings.